A group of influential politicians, judges and lawyers today called on the Illinois Supreme Court to order hearings into allegations that at least 15 men remain imprisoned despite allegations they were tortured into confessing by disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and detectives under his command.

The group asked the Supreme Court to order Cook County’s chief judge to conduct hearings to assess evidence of torture in each case and determine whether the convictions should be thrown out.

The friend-of-the-court brief was filed in connection with an appeal pending before the Supreme Court by Stanley Wrice, who has been imprisoned since confessing to a 1982 rape. He alleged he was beaten by Burge’s men.

The brief -- signed by former Gov. Jim Thompson, former U.S. Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson III as well as former federal prosecutors and other high-powered members of the legal community –- assails Cook County prosecutors for arguing that Wrice’s conviction should stand because of other evidence against him other than the confession. Thus, prosecutors contend the confession was “harmless error.”

“We believe Burge’s torture is so profoundly antithetical to our notions of justice and fair play that it cannot be permitted to taint any conviction, no matter the imagined strength of the other evidence against the defendant,” the brief said.

Burge is currently serving a 4 1/2 year federal sentence after being convicted in 2010 of lying under oath about systematic torture under his command at Area 2 detective headquarters in the 1970s and 1980s.

The brief comes on the heels of a decision by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer that former Mayor Richard M. Daley can be sued with others for the alleged cover-up of the brutality.

“Men languishing in prison have claimed for years that their convictions rest on torture,” said Locke Bowman, legal director of the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University. “The only way to get to the bottom of this is to hold hearings into each credible claim of torture.”

Wrice, who is serving a 100-year sentence, alleges that two detectives under Burge beat him in the face and groin with a flashlight and a rubber hose until he confessed to a rape he did not commit.

Last year an Illinois Appeals Court ruled that there was enough evidence of torture to grant Wrice a full evidentiary hearing, based in part on a 2006 report by a special prosecutor that documented abuses under Burge.

Prosecutors have appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, saying in part that there was enough evidence against Wrice to secure a conviction without his confession.

A spokesman for State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez could not be immediately reached for reaction to the brief.